For my organization, each day begins with our primary staff stand-up in the Joint Operations Center (JOC). We discuss intelligence developments, legal actions, resources, maneuver units’ completed actions and scheduled events, and internal admin and house-keeping needed to keep the machine running. We are focused on the mission, and because we communicate with each other all day, every day, our shared understanding makes the stand-up a series of updates, not briefings.
It’s a short, 10- to 15-minute event that syncs professionals focused on different aspects of our organization’s common mission. My contributions have varied: I’ve briefed the headlines; discussed indications and misinformation in social media; and updated the team on which senior officials will speak to the media that day, and the topics they’ll cover.
Lately, something funny has started happening at these stand-up meetings.
More and more often, I have less and less to say by the time I get a chance to speak. The other staff primaries are using their time to talk about media coverage and public messaging. The intel folks talk about press reports and connect them to information in classified channels. The lawyer points out which parts of upcoming legal actions will likely become public through court filings. The ops team talks about how our headquarters can or should “message” the most complex operational events. Our admin folks include Department of Defense press conferences on the JOC’s daily schedule.
Wait … isn’t that all supposed to be my territory?
Hell no, the news is for everyone. I’m thrilled to be part of a team of leaders who pay attention to and value public communication.
I talk to my coworkers about messaging and the news throughout the day. The topics they mention at the stand-up are things I’ve already discussed with them, or the group, as news breaks or operations happen. Sometimes, they’re putting my lessons in their own words. Most other times, they’re adding new information or context to our previous discussions, since they’re also smart and strategic thinkers.
It’s all groovy, but doesn’t solve my problem of having less to say at the morning brief. Good thing I solve problems myself: with the basics covered, I can go a level deeper. I talk about what the U.S. message is on emerging topics, as I’ve heard through the PAO network. I enlighten the team with the hard questions we anticipate, and the answers I’ve already proposed to our higher headquarters. Based on our wider PAO team’s research, I add context to discussions about the media by sharing the non-Defense or regional trends and topics that are also dominating headlines. Sometimes I end up giving the team an impromptu class on the Pentagon press corps, or regional media bias, or the nature of recent leaks.
The news doesn’t belong to you. The news is for everyone.
(Photo by Sgt. Zachary Mott, DVIDS)
